Tuesday, April 11, 2017

15. 4/11/17

[note to my readers: you may notice that when you click on my headline links below, you are directed to The Times's website, where the online headline is almost always different from the one in the print edition. My headlines come from that print edition. -- LS]

"'A bakery doesn't want to have a lot of extra pastries at the end of the day they have to throw out,' said Seth Kaplan, managing partner at Airline Weekly, an industry publication. 'To an airline, an empty seat is basically the same thing as stale bread. It's something they can never sell again.'"

It seems so simple. Yes, bakeries frequently have to throw out extra pastries -- but the zero-sum result is simple: If the bakery didn't bake enough pastries for the day, their customers might not return again. The bakery down the street is smart enough to know that risking ten or twelve uneaten chocolate croissants is a small cost of doing business in order to retain the addicted customer (me!) ...

If the airplane seats 100, and you count the four members of the flight crew -- only sell 96 seats! So what if three or four no-shows reduce your profit margin by a few hundred dollars. Suck it up United!

"Since December, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has signaled its intent ..."

Perhaps because Obama seemed to use the abbreviation ISIL exclusively in his statements, The Times -- as recently as a few months ago -- formulated the phrase as follows:

"The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL ..."

I do not understand why The Times won't simply use the phrase "The Islamic State" and just drop the abbreviations. We all know them.

OTOH, it irks me to no end when I read an article and something akin to the following pops up:

"Just like the scene in Hamilton, so-and-so did such-and-such to him or her..."

I am certain I am not the only Times reader that has not seen the play. If we have to read ISIS and ISIL in every article about the Islamic State, couldn't you editors please give some sort of short description of when you are talking about a play that no one can see unless you have an extra 10 or 15 Benjamins?

"Ms. Le Pen's words created a small eruption in an already heated campaign, drawing strong criticism by politicians right, left and center and by Jewish groups, who all saw it as an echo of her party's anti-Semitic roots."

Inforwars [bring the roaches into the light]: "The White Helmets, an Al Qaeda affiliated group funded by George Soros and the British government, have reportedly staged another chemical weapon attack on civilians in the Syrian city of Khan Shaykhun to lay blame on the Syrian government."